Family Ministry Summer

What a glorious summer it has been! As most of you know, the focus this summer has been on implementing a Family Ministry plan at Bush Memorial that we hope to be able to use as a comprehensive example and learning tool as we help churches transition to a family equipping ministry model. This past Sunday represented the official end of the summer of emphasis. However, the foundation that was lain will serve as a model for doing ministry, both at Bush Memorial and hundreds of other churches, for years to come.
What we learned this summer is something we already believed to be true, family ministry is not programs, or ministry elements, and it is certainly not just about events. Family ministry and a family equipping ministry model is an attitude or ethos. It is not something you do, it is something you believe. That sounds like biblical Christianity doesn’t it?
That is why we believe that the biblical, family equipping, model that seeks to produce a faith handed down from one generation to the next, through Parents filling their primary role as the spiritual mentors of their children and older men discipling younger men, is so compelling to this generation; because it is authentic, corporate faith that is active, distinct, generational and missional.
Because this kind of family ministry model is so comprehensive, it requires that people see beyond the individual ministry elements to the biblical core. A way of doing ministry that is generational requires believers put aside themselves and a generation of self-help, entertainment driven, consumer based ministry and take up anew an ancient idea of ministry that is grounded in service and sacrifice.
We believe that is why the best elements that we implemented this summer produced real fruit when they called people out of the normal and out of their own self-interest, and into an investment in community, multi-generational faith and service.
We have found that this requires us to put off our generational arrogance, which is the idea that one generation has an attitude of superiority that manifest itself in presumptuous claims or assumptions. It most often refers to a younger generation’s propensity to think it has all of the answers, or an older generations propensity to think it was all better in the old days.
We have also found that it requires us to put on an attitude of generational faithfulness, which is the idea of passing down one’s spiritual heritage from one generation to the next as a means of continuing, or beginning, a heritage of God-honoring, Christ-serving, kingdom-advancing children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.
That is why the central idea of this entire family ministry summer is that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, but our legacy will be defined by what we produce in those who follow behind. We either believe that or we do not. I believe that generational faithfulness is fundamental to the survival and influence of the Church. I believe it is fundamental to the survival and influence of the family. I believe God established those two institutions as the stewards of all we know and believe as followers of Christ, and I pray you will work with us to share these principles with others.